Watchtower
Uptime and performance auditing, monitoring and alerting for WordPress.
Consider an alternative
Watchtower shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 10+ sites and was last updated 6 years ago, and scores 23/100 on our health check.
- Small user base (10+ active installs)
- Very few reviews so far
- No update in 6 years
- Only tested up to WordPress 5.4 (latest is 7.1)
How does it stack up?
Side-by-side on installs, updates, ratings & support
Daily downloads
Download spikes usually follow a new release — each site that auto-updates counts as a download.
Rankings
Where Watchtower stands todayWordPress.org search rankings
Live position in the plugin search, top 100| Keyword | Position |
|---|---|
| audit | >100 |
| auditing | >100 |
| monitor | >100 |
| monitoring | >100 |
| wordpress monitoring | >100 |
Version adoption
Share of active sites per release.
About Watchtower
From the official readme · v0.2Description
Watchtower is a plugin that monitors your WordPress website and alerts you of any issues that show up unexpectedly. Think of it as your WordPress guardian angel.
While we’re still quite fresh, we’re constantly growing and expanding the features of the plugin. We currently support uptime monitoring, performance auditing/tracking and alerts/notifications.
Watchtower is free but there is a Pro plan which allows you to super charge the features of the plugin to include things such as SMS sending and faster alert/audit times.
Uptime Monitoring
Watchtower notifies you when your WordPress website is down. Once connected, we’ll constantly ping your WordPress website and notify when it is unavailable or returning an error.
Performance Monitoring
Performance can the difference between a user continuing to browse your website and clicking the close tab button. It also helps you rank better in the search engines and improve your SEO. Watchtower lets you know exactly where you stand in terms of performance.
Web Vitals
Our performance metrics are powered by Web Vitals by Google. Google has developed key metrics around performance of websites called Web Vitals. We track these metrics on an ongoing basis and report the results back to you.
Notifications
Configuring notifications is easy in Watchtower. Add as many email, SMS or Whatsapp contacts as you’d like and they’ll all receive alerts when activated.
Reporting
Watchtower reports on uptime issues and performance directly from your WordPress dashboard. You’ll be able to check your stats over a given time period and see a list of alerts that have been sent.
Pro Plan
As mentioned, Watchtower is free. If you’d like faster alerting, SMS alerts and other more advanced features you can upgrade your account. Check out the Watchtower website to see the Pro features that are available and the pricing.
Icon Credit
The Watchtower icon was created by Freepik from www.flaticon.com
Installation
Installation is simple! Download and add the plugin to WordPress (or use the WordPress plugin installer). Once the plugin is installed, activate it.
Upon activation, you’ll see the Watchtower menu item added to the WordPress admin menu. Click Watchtower and you’ll be asked to connect to the Watchtower service. This will take less than 2 minutes and your website will be connected. You can now start using the plugin.
Changelog
0.2
- Brand new dashboard and UI
- Integrated Web Vitals performance stats
- New look stats and graphs for uptime and performance
- Added basic security checks, currently monitoring SSL
0.1.1
- Show warning when WordPress version is lower than 5.0
- Faster cache invalidation for account data
- Added some responsive styles to the dashboard
- Show “Pro only” label on SMS option in settings
0.1
- Connect to Watchtower
- Uptime reporting for the last 30 days and a 7 day breakdown
- Uptime monitoring
- Add contacts for alerts
Screenshots
For developers
Is this your plugin? Show off the numbers.
Add a live badge to your site, docs or GitHub README. It updates on its own — no account needed.
Best Watchtower alternatives
All audit plugins →
FAQ
Watchtower: quick answers
Straight answers, pulled from live WordPress.org data.
Live data from WordPress.org · checked Sep 27, 2026
Is Watchtower free?
Yes. Watchtower is free to download and use from the official WordPress.org plugin directory.
Is Watchtower safe to use in 2026?
Watchtower shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 10+ sites and was last updated 6 years ago, and scores 23/100 on our health check.
How many websites use Watchtower?
Watchtower is active on 10+ WordPress websites and has been downloaded 1,303 times since it launched in May 2020. It was downloaded 40 times in the last 30 days.
Does Watchtower work with WordPress 7.1?
Watchtower is officially tested up to WordPress 5.4.23, while the latest release is 7.1.2. It may still work, but try it on a staging site first.
What PHP version does Watchtower need?
Watchtower requires PHP 5.6 or higher. Most hosts run PHP 8.x today, so it works on any modern WordPress hosting.
When was Watchtower last updated?
The latest version, 0.2, was released on May 28, 2020 (6 years ago).
Who makes Watchtower?
Watchtower is developed and maintained by MattGeri.
What are the best alternatives to Watchtower?
The most popular alternatives to Watchtower are Audit Trail (20K+ installs), MYAIO (300+ installs) and Sa11y, the accessibility qu… (300+ installs).
Powered by PageForge
Want thousands of pages that rank like these? Build them in an afternoon.
This directory runs on the same engine as PageForge. Turn any spreadsheet, CSV or API into thousands of fast, SEO-ready WordPress pages — with schema, internal links and AI-written copy baked in.
- CSV, Google Sheets & API data sources
- AI content, schema & internal links per page
- Works with Elementor, Gutenberg, Yoast & Rank Math
- Free on WordPress.org — no credit card
